


I Can't Say

by awkwardgturtle



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardgturtle/pseuds/awkwardgturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick knows Pete a little too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Say

Patrick knew Pete. Like, Patrick was the only one that really got him. He knew the inner workings of Pete’s mind like they were his own, even when Pete did not know them himself. It was a trait that Pete never understood, and it never ceased to amaze him when Patrick would turn his inane blather into something meaningful. It never ceased to disappoint him when others would take that meaningful something and spam the Q&A’s with “WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!!?!?1?!” No one knew it. No one got it. No one knew but PeteandPatrick, that unbeatable duo, that meld of minds that no one could sever.

Pete knew there was something special about his bond with Patrick since the van days. He would always lie awake while the rest of the boys slept, whispering through the dark at Patrick who would lie back turned and eyes closed, murmuring for Pete to at least try to sleep. Pete never would though. He would ramble on about his inner demons, his nightmares, his troubles, his past girlfriends, poking Patrick to make sure he was still listening, until one day, Patrick finally snapped and told him to just write it all down so he could read it in the morning. The outburst shocked Pete, and he sulked about it for several days before realizing Patrick was probably right.

The first night he wrote was lonely, and all Pete could think about was how Patrick was lying right there, but was not really there like he was those nights before. That night he slept with the words “tonight is all about I miss you” inked deep into his notebook. Something in the smile on Patrick’s face when he read it that morning had him grinning in return, and spilling his heart onto paper every night after.

Pete didn’t know when things started to change between them. He had been hanging all over Patrick since they met so many years ago when Patrick would still blush and stutter and shove him away, and Pete would bound away laughing. Even when Patrick got used to it and started to flirt and touch back, it still felt like nothing more than two friends horsing around onstage and offstage and on tour busses and in interviews.

It was one day, though, that Pete realized that it had changed. They were at his house; Patrick was on the couch working away on his laptop with Pete sprawled across his lap. Pete knew there was a time that he would think, there is my friend, writing a song on his computer. Today he found himself wondering what Patrick would taste like if he licked him on the lips. Patrick caught him staring and his mouth quirked up in a nervous smile. Pete smiled back as if nothing had changed.

><><><><><><  

  
Patrick knew things had changed long before Pete did. His ramblings and lyrics had moved away from bitter recollections of old relationships and toward confusion and discontent and a near nonchalance for women in general. What he did not realize was _how_ things had changed. It wasn’t for lack of trying; he dug through the words time and time again for any hint. Pete left none to be found, though, for at that time Pete did not know himself.

  
Patrick even knew that something had changed within himself: The twinge he felt when he was with Pete had faded from _ohmygodPeteWentzfromArma_ to simple contentment whenever Pete was around. He stopped rolling his eyes when he saw Pete wander off with random girls and started to feel minutely betrayed. He started to find Pete less and less annoying and more and more endearing. He figured it had something to do with how much time they spent together, that they were in the transition between friends and best friends. Except he knew it wasn’t, and it bothered him more than a little. He found out when he discovered the pages of lyrics Pete had shoved under his mattress.

 

><><><><><><  

  
Pete was sure Andy was getting tired of listening to him. He was just going to have to deal with it though, because Pete was in love with his best friend and he didn’t know what to do but angst about it at someone, and Patrick was really not an option right now. One day Andy snapped and told him to stop whining about it and write it down like he always did. Andy didn’t get it though. He didn’t understand that Patrick _knew_ Pete. If Patrick ever found his flustered, disjointed prattle, he would _know_. Pete wasn’t sure he was ready to handle that.

  
Instead, Pete had taken to not writing at all, afraid that this overflowing feeling would inadvertently spill onto the page, even if the subject was completely unrelated. Patrick started to worry, though, giving him these sad or suspicious looks whenever Pete said there was nothing new for him, so Pete slowly started to write again. Each time, he would overanalyze himself and grow paranoid that Patrick would be able to see through his words. He would spend hours behind his pen and only come up with a handful of lines that didn’t mean “I love you.” The rest he stuffed under his mattress and hoped Patrick would never know.

 

><><><><><>< 

  
Patrick did know. Patrick couldn’t not know. Spread before him was page after page after page of declarations of love and self-loathing, screaming “Patrick, Patrick, Patrick!” With a trembling hand and an aching heart, he gathered up the words and closed them in a box. Pete would notice they were gone, he knew, but Patrick could not bring himself to return them. He read them over and over, half hoping that this time they will mean something different. He knew they would not. He felt them as he slept. He heard them on loop in his head when Pete so much as glanced at him, worry lining his sleep-deprived eyes. He tasted a song in the lines, so strong that he had to will himself not to write one. He hid the box away and prayed Pete wouldn’t find out.

 

><><><><><>< 

  
Pete didn’t find out. Andy, however, did. Pete shrieked and cried at Andy, blaming him for the loss of his lyrics, and swore that he’d never listen to Andy ever again. Pete stomped and sulked like a five-year old everywhere but around Patrick, but Andy could tell that Patrick already knew. Patrick was Patrick, after all. Andy would be lying if he said that he wasn’t looking for the lyrics when he found them.

  
When Andy confronted Patrick, all Patrick offered was a strangled, “Please don’t tell.”

  
When Pete asked Andy where he found them, he muttered, “Slipped behind your headboard, dumbass.”

 

><><><><><>< 

  
They weren’t getting anything done. Pete could barely write without declaring his love, and Patrick couldn’t write a song without those words circling through his head. Joe and Andy were blessedly patient, but for once the PeteandPatrick duo simply wasn’t working. Everything they wrote together came out jumbled and awkward and didn’t mean a thing. Finally, Patrick wrote a song that worked, that had meaning. Every single word was one he was never meant to see. He placed it on Pete’s pillow and left, not wanting to see Pete’s reaction. He already knew what it was.

 

><><><><><>< 

  
Pete was furious. He hated everything. He hated his words, he hated Patrick for using them, he hated Andy for lying to him, but he hated himself most of all. He hated himself for writing them, for hiding them, for not sending the words through a shredder when he had the chance.

  
Patrick was nowhere to be found, leaving Pete to seethe and simmer all day, pacing his house, growling at his reflection, knocking things over simply for the satisfaction of watching them hit the ground. By the time Patrick showed up, Pete was two seconds from punching him in his pretty little face. He found Patrick’s face was soon occupied though, focused on kissing Pete hard, then sputtering “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please don’t hate me,” over and over as Patrick buried his head into Pete’s shoulder.

  
Pete pushed him away, and for a long moment he was still considering punching him in the face. Patrick’s wide, pleading eyes told that he knew what Pete was thinking, so Pete shoved him into the wall, pressing into him and licking into his mouth just like he had wanted to all those days ago. Pete found satisfaction in Patrick’s surprised yelp because for once, Patrick was wrong. He was wrong because Pete made him wrong. He was wrong because Pete found that this was what he had wanted instead. He pulled away, loving everything.

 

><><><><><>< 

  
The only problem with the bond of PeteandPatrick is that they often don’t realize when others aren’t following when they go off on a tangent, or finish each other’s sentences, or uncover something. This becomes a problem when Joe discovers them on the tour bus weeks later, Pete with his hand jammed down Patrick’s pants. Joe left in remarkable silence, despite his horror. It was just another tale in the world of PeteandPatrick.


End file.
